Mediamax’s exclusive with Blahoslav Nemecek, Executive director at EY Czech and team leader of “Green City Action Plan Yerevan” Project

- Yerevan Municipality announced recently about Green City project funded by EBRD, where EY (previously Ernst & Young) will be an advisor. Which will be your company’s main functions in this program and what kind of advice will you provide?

- We work in cooperation with a team of independent Armenian experts as well as international experts from specialized partner companies – SEVEn (Energy Efficiency) and GeoTest (water and waste related topics). 

Our ultimate task is to deliver a Green City Action Plan, a conceptual document that will identify key challenges and propose priority actions to address these challenges for the City of Yerevan.

We are going to systematically analyze available data on current situation, come up with structured policy options and actions and facilitate the discussions with the City of Yerevan and various stakeholders. The ultimate selection of priorities and decision on which actions to implement belong to the City of Yerevan.

- What are the priorities of Green City program and by what criteria were they determined?

- The project aims at promoting Yerevan’s economic and social growth while addressing environmental challenges. Its ambition is to produce a holistic assessment and a holistic strategy supporting green economy. To achieve this, EBRD, OECD and ICLEI (global network of cities, towns and regions promoting sustainable development) have developed a comprehensive methodology that links indicators of state (such as air pollution) with its causes (such as transport emissions) and existing policies. The methodology is built around quantified information and benchmarks that allow for “technical prioritization” of challenges, but this technical assessment will only serve as the foundation or starting point – the final word on development priorities will result from consultations of the City of Yerevan and its stakeholders.

- Investment projects will be realized in public transport, water supply, wastewater filtration, use of energy saving heating systems, and solid waste management. What will be these projects and what kind of work will be done?

- Specific projects will only be identified during the Green City Action Plan (GCAP) development based on established priorities as well as efficiency of investment options (such as energy savings or other improvements expected per dollar invested). They will build on and complement projects already decided or foreseen by other policy documents such as the Sustainable Energy Action Plan. GCAP may propose additional investments as well as specific program and incentives to achieve its objectives. The final decision on whether to proceed with these investments will, of course, rest with the authorities.

- How many stages will the program include? What will be realized in each stage?

- There are four major phases. The first one, called “Green City Baseline”, consists of data gathering, mapping the current situation and prioritizing the challenges. This is the phase we have entered now. The second phase, “Green City Action Plan”, will focus on formulating a development vision and selecting policy options to be implemented. The third phase, “Green City Implementation”, will also include appropriate monitoring. The final phase, “Green City Reporting”, consists of evaluating the results of the actions implemented and gather lessons learned that can be used in a new GCAP cycle (refreshing the baseline, formulating anew action plan, etc.)

- How much time and funding will be required for each stage and the entire program?

- Regarding the time needed, the first two phases should be completed by next summer (2017), after which the City may take around three years to implement the action plan – the subsequent evaluation should be performed within a few months. As to the funding, the first two phases, including the elaboration of the  Monitoring Plan, are covered by a grant from the Czech donor managed by the EBRD, but the key funding requirements will be determined by the selection of policies and investments to be made. Estimation of the funding needs associated with various policy options will be part of the second phase of the project and the City will make the ultimate decision as to the nature and scope of investments.

- The cornerstone of the second step in strategy is the question “Where are we going and where do we want to get?” What is the answer if you’ve established it already?

- The answer is going to be formulated in the second phase. At the same time, it is a good question to ask already – we have been collecting feedback on this from the first day we started the project.

- Who will supervise Green City program and how?

- During the first two phases, the project will be supervised by both EBRD as the grant donor and The City of Yerevan as the Green City program owner.

In the third and fourth phase, the program will be supervised by the City only but we as consultants will help with the definition of project implementation monitoring mechanisms.

- Yerevan residents are expected to participate actively during implementation of the program. Which will be the participation mechanisms?

- We have started a dialogue with NGOs as main representatives of residents and having a very good understanding of the situation in the City. This dialogue will be continued throughout the GCAP development. Direct communication with residents is planned through two public workshops at the end of the first phase and towards the end of the second phase.

- The program anticipates mitigation of environmental issues and risks, including reduction of CO2 emission. What measures will be taken and how will such results be achieved?

- As mentioned before, GCAP will build on Sustainable Energy Action Plan adopted earlier this year and targeting energy savings, energy efficiency and renewable energy production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We will take all the measures proposed already into account and based on the overall results of our analysis identify any complementary measures to enhance the impact. However, currently it is too early to specify them.

Marie Taryan talked to Blahoslav Nemecek